New Limmel Lock, the Netherlands

The €35M New Limmel Lock project near Maastricht in the Netherlands successfully reached financial close in 2015.

Mott MacDonald did an excellent job on informing the lenders on the risk profile of the project. This was particularly challenging as the contractual project finance framework was first tested in the market on this pilot project for the Dutch DBFM lock projects program.

Hidde Siemonsma

Financial Manager to the SPC

The design, build, finance and maintenance project consists of all work to be performed in connection with the construction of a new barrage lock and demolition of an existing lock system, including 30 years of maintenance.

By replacing the existing lock, which is nearly 100 years’ old, the new barrage lock will offer access to the Juliana canal – an important navigational route between Limmel and Maasbracht. It is being broadened and deepened to enable larger canal barges to use this route in the future.

We provided due diligence and technical reports to support financial close and will now monitor construction in an ongoing role to help the project stay on programme and budget. Client is Keersluis Limmel Company, a consortium consisting of BESIX Group and Rebel group.

This project builds on our previous infrastructure experience in the Netherlands and Belgium, where we are one of the leading providers of technical advice having worked on over 20 PPP schemes.

Hidde Siemonsma, Financial Manager to the SPC, said “Mott MacDonald did an excellent job on informing the lenders on the risk profile of the project. This was particularly challenging as the contractual project finance framework (including the amended DBFM Agreement) was first tested in the market on this pilot project for the Dutch DBFM lock projects program. As a result, we (the project company) were comfortable that the lenders had thorough understanding of the project and did not see major obstacles providing the debt financing.”

Value and benefits

Understanding of the sponsors' need for an early alert to concerns or requirements for information aligned with our close understanding of lenders' funding issues and need to satisfy their credit committees.

A detailed due diligence report with clearly identified risks allowed lenders to have confidence in the DBMF approach.

Through our team's deep understanding of the PPP process we were able to assist the client and appointed lenders through the negotiations period to financial close.